Archive

#20—Winter 2014
Celebrating our 15th year in existence, Drunken Boat #20 presents a sonic navigation scheme on its home page and regular selections of Reviews, Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction, and Translation (which asks a number of contemporary poets and translators to remake three stanzas of Rimbaud's famous Le Bateau Ivre, the source of our journal's name in wild and inventive ways). Our three special folios for the issue include the Affrilachian Arts, drawn from the richness of African American culture from the Appalachian region and edited by Kalela Williams; Digital Poetics, put together by Digital Poetry, put together by David Jhave Johnston and including such works as Brian Kim Stefans' algorithmic poem/painting of shivering, exploding alphabets; and finally, a folio on a new, multimedia genre, that of Poetry Comix and Animation curated by Michael Chaney and Marco Maisto. This issue celebrates the new ground Drunken Boat has been breaking for the last fifteen years.

#19—Spring 2013
In addition to poetry, fiction and nonfiction, issue inaugurates our Translation section, edited by Anna Rosenwong, and now a regular section of our journal. Anna exuberantly casts "a wide net across languages, eras, literary styles, and approaches," including an excerpt of María José Giménez’s translation of Alejandro Saravia’s novel, "Rojo, Amarillo, Verde" and Yardenne Greenspan’s translation of Hebrew writer Rachel Shalita’s magical story, “The Ecstasy of Saint Francis,” among others. We also include an Art section devoted to contemporary Chinese artworks edited by David Harrison Horton, a Greek poetry folio curated by Dr. Vassilis Manoussakis which includes both the Greek originals and their English counterparts, and Flash Fiction Funny, short, droll pieces of 750 words or less gathered by Tom Hazuka.

#18—Winter 2013
For nearly 10 years, artists Caspar Stracke and Gabriela Monroy have been curating the video_dumbo festival, an exhibition of international contemporary moving image held annually Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY. This issue collects some of the best works from that festival, alongside a folio on debt (what we borrow and owe, literally and figuratively) put together by Drunken Boat's Michelle Chan Brown, one on the ocean (a collection of image and poetry inspired by the sea gathered by Marie Elizabeth-Mali), and one on the Librotraficante (or booksmugglers) movement curated by Erin Wilcox and Tony Diaz about the underground library movement that has sprung up in Arizona to bring books banned under the legislation HB 2281 back into classrooms and into the hands of those who need them most. Along with Poetry, Reviews and Fiction, this is one of the most socially and politically engaged issues of Drunken Boat.

#17 – Summer 2013
Published in tandem with our second book, Lisa Russ Spaar’s The Hide-and-Seek Muse: Annotations of Contemporary Poetry, this issue includes excerpts from the book and audio from some of the poems included in this acclaimed collection (including from Edward Hirsh and Pulitzer Prize winner Claudia Emerson), as well as such extraordinary work as fiction from Bosnian refugee Adnan Mahmutovi, genre-bending CNF from Quintan Ana Wikswo, hapa haole bricolage art by Mitsuko Brooks, Sabrina Ratté’s transformations of the Almafi Coast into video feedback, Pushcart-prize nominated poetry from Ocean Vuong, Connecticut Poet Laureate Dick Allen’s new translation of the Neykhor, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and reviews of over 40 contemporary books of poetry, fiction and mixed genre.

#16 – Winter 2012
An omnibus of folios from a special collaboration with the Asian American Writers Workshop and Open City on Asian American Urbanisms to a retrospective look back at the late Barry Hannah including audio of his final live reading; from Luciano Chessa’s Sound Art/Dissonance audio folio to a look at the theme of Exploration through a kaleidoscope of media, including Scott Wallace recounting time spent in the deepest recesses of the Amazon, Jason Anthony’s lyric exposition of Antarctica, Adriane Colburn’s graphical lexicography of landscape, and Adrian Seymour’s handycam video of an expedition into Indonesia, some of the work produced for WNPR’s “Where We Live.” Kristin Prevallet has put together the comprehensive look at the burgeoning field of Trance Poetics, mapping the gaps in one’s habitual patterns of awareness with an array of dazzling poems, while Zach Blas & Christopher O’Leary have curated mixed media from a Los Angeles gallery show for the SPECULATIVE folio. Also including the best in contemporary fiction and art.

#15 – Spring 2012
Our first issue using a new open source content management system and fully searchable for the first time, this issue features two special folios on Native American Women poets curated by Layli Long Soldier and one on Handmade/Homemade work, put together by Deborah Poe and including handmade, homemade and letterpress chapbooks, one-of-a-kind editions and broadsides and published in tandem with a book arts exhibition at Pace University. The issue also debuts our book reviews section, edited by Shira Dentz, and includes selections in Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction, including work by Nin Andrews, Amit Majumdar, Suzanne Scanlon and Maureen Alsop.

#14 – Summer 2011
Spotlighting the prose and art of queer writers and artists in our second installment of /Slant/Sex/, and with a very special folio dedicated to Bernadette Mayer and the influence she has had on all of us who create things. In light of the VIDA’s research on gender disparity in literary publications, this issue’s fiction folio is a collection of Contemporary Women’s Fiction. With an intermedia folio of Nonfiction Portraits, including an excerpt from Oscar Hijuelos’ latest novel and a performance piece by Quintan Ana Wikswo, and a folio of Poetry exploring sequences and long poems.

#13 – Winter 2010-2011
DB13 is emerging as the weather warms up, with features on /Slant/Sex/, the first half of a collection of writing and art exploring the often taboo sexuality of all woman-identified and trans individuals, and First Peoples, Plural, an interdisciplinary exploration of native identity and aesthetic from around the world. Also with new poetry by Tomaz Salamun, a multimedia folio of nonfiction, with playlists on process by essayists including Rick Moody, and new photography, sound, and installation art.

#11 – Winter 2010
Marking our first semi-annual release, DB brings you more great poetry, fiction, and nonfiction from around the world, as well as the featured folio, Life in a Time of Contraction, a socially-conscious collection of nonfiction and visual arts, as well as an exclusive on current US Poet-Laureate Kay Ryan and a folio of sound art.

#10 – Summer 2009
Our deluxe 10th anniversary issue, featuring 10 folios: Poetics, presenting the work of over 100 poets; Arts in Asia; the second installment of mis/Translation; Visual Poetics, which explores the line between poetry and the written space; Electronic Arts, featuring work from Young Hae-Chang Heavy Industries; the Cartagena Projects, a collection of work inspired by Carmen Conde; Conceptual Fiction; Best of Drunken Boat, a retrospective; Black Mountain College, a collection of essays and archival material; and new Nonfiction. With over 300 contributors, this issue is packed with poetry, fiction, nonfiction, essay, translation, art, photography, video and film, sound, comix, web art, and more.

#9 – Winter 2007-2008
A feature on Poetics, inspired by poet and critic Dana Gioia’s essay “Can Poetry Matter,” which asked ten non-poets, including novelists, architects and a professional conversationalist, to respond to a selection of contemporary poetry. The issue also includes the remainder of the finalists from our inaugural Panliterary Awards, which includes work in seven genres, as well as the first wave of our Mis/Translation folio which explores from straight to skewed, literal to playful, and textual to multimedia translations, all refracted through the lens of both traditional and alternative translation practices.

#8 – Fall 2006
A Triple Feature on the PanLit, OuLiPo & Canadian Strange: dedicated to the inaugural PanLiterary Awards Winners in seven genres; the spreading potentiality of the Oulipo; and the very strangest of current Canadian Arts and Letters. Featuring over 125 contributors, including a radio play by Mark Rudman and Martha Plimpton, ambigrams by Doug Hofstadter, archival material from Raymond Queneau and Marcel Duchamp, translations by Cole Swenson and Keith and Rosemarie Waldrop, video from Adeena Karasick, photos by Allyson Clay and Gabor Szilasi, among many others. Including new work from the PanLiterary Judges: PEN/Faulkner Award winner Sabina Murray, conceptual artist and musician DJ Spooky, poet, translator and librettist, Annie Finch, Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, Alexandra Tolstoy, trace/Alt-X New Media Award winner Talan Memmott, and video art pioneer and TV interventionist, David Hall.

#7 – Spring 2005
A special folio of Aphasia in the arts, as well as a retrospective look at poet William Meredith, complete with interviews and archival video footage. This larger than usual issue includes poetry by Paul Amlehn, Ken Rumble, Tony Tost, and Gautam Verma; prose by Kate Hill Cantrill and Leland Pitts-Gonzalez; web art by Deena Larson and Prema Murthy; photos by Sol Lewitt and Elisabeth Subrin; sound art by Ros Bandt and Stephen Vitiello; and video by Angela Alston and Nicolas Barrie. A section of literary translation includes work by Salvatore Quasimodo, Thanh Thao, Jean-Michel Espitalier, Jacques Roubaud, and Turkish Sufi poets. All this, among many others.

#6 – Spring 2004
Our sixth issue, marking our transition to an annual, featured the audio and text of an extended interview with Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Norman Mailer conducted by Dr. Barry Leeds, as well as poetry by Andrea Baker, Brian Kim Stefans, and Lyn Lifshin, video by Mark O’Connell and Nick Fox-Gieg, Sound by Cary Peppermint and Latasha Natasha Diggs, cybertext by Robert Kendall and Dorothee Lang, web art by Alan Berliner and Yucef Merhi, and photos by Eddy Seesing, and Hoag Holmgren.

#5 – Winter 2002-2003
Another eclectic assortment of the verbal, aural, and visual, organized around the theme of conscientious dialogue. Including poetry by Roseanna Warren, Ray Gonzalez, Kathleen Ossip, and Mark Conway, video art by Sharon Paz, web art by Jeanie Finlay and David Hirmes, audio by Mac Dunlop and Edward Ruchalski, photographs by Andrija Ilic of Serbia before and after civil war, and plenty more.

#3 – Fall/Winter 2001
A double issue featuring more than fifty contributors, with a special emphasis on ethnopoetics and international representation. Featuring contributors from six continents, multiple navigational schemes, including an interactive map. Includes a reprint of Jerome Rothenberg’s seminal essay on Ethnopoetics, sound art by Charles Bernstein, work by acclaimed digital innovator Mark Amerika, web art by Talan Memmott, video by Zoe Beloff, riveting performance poetry by T’ai Freedom Ford, Carribean legend Linton Kwesi Johnson, Heather McHugh, Alice Fulton, and Eritrea Poet Laureate, Ressom Haile, including poems in English and in the endangered language of Tigrinya (audio and text).

#2 – Winter/Spring 2001
Eleven excellent visual artists, four sound artists and a highly selective offering of writing including the poetry of Alberta Turner, David Lehman, Stephanie Strickland, and more. Including the web art of Yael Kanarek which later appeared in the Whitney Biennial, sound by Japanese artist Koji Asano, criticism by Serge Gavronsky, and a reprint of an unknown story of Charles Dickens.\

#1 – Summer/Fall 2000
Our distinctly lo-fi debut, assembling poetry, prose and interactive web-works in the same space. Featuring digital photos by painter/sculptor David Humphrey, hypertext by Lisa Bloomfield, a critical essay on revision and Elizabeth Bishop by Rachel Hadas, poets Alfred Corn and Leslie Scalpino presenting new work and Jennifer Coates satirical send up of pseudo-business letters. Presenting the earliest works of multimedia and web art as well as a big selection of writing ranging from the quirky to the somber.